August 27, 2012

To his friend...

50 comments:

Well...it's true. Calling yourself a nerd or geek is the newest fashion accessoire.(Note: I know several female nerds/geeks who are the real deal, so I'm not saying that every female nerd is a hipster.)

And that makes them happy. So what? Far worse in the comics/geek community are the sexist jerks who make sure that huge numbers of people who would love comics don't feel welcome in comics stores and thus never read comics.

Far worse, and sadly far more common. I don't there's any downside to having people who maybe aren't "hardcore" enough for you refer to themselves as nerds. You want people to stop being turned off when you tell them about your comic book collection? Well having mainstream people call themselves "nerds" and talk about Batman is going to go a long way towards that.

I don't know why you wouldn't expect to find misogyny in a sub-culture that is defined as being marginalized socially. Well I guess a thing is worse than another thing, so by Kepler's law of inflationary bullshit we can't complain about nerd girl posers until we solve sexism.

"I don't know why you wouldn't expect to find misogyny in a sub-culture that is defined as being marginalized socially." So many responses occur to me. I'll go with gently pointing out the assumption that this works only if you assume all subcultures are male-oriented from the beginning. I'm afraid that's a invalid assumption.

Well this one is! I guess if I was trying to make a model or write a thesis paper my assumption would be invalid. However yes, it's stupid to NOT expect some misogyny in a group of people who were roughly marketed a product because they didn't have a good time in high school.

On the one hand, it's troubling to see your identity get co-opted for fashion, especially when you've been ridiculed your whole life for it, and now the people who did the ridiculing are claiming they're one of you. It can seem kind of unfair.

But on the other hand, people need to stop being such exclusive dicks about it. There's no geek or nerd test, and seeing everyone in terms of "real" or "fake" just makes you look like a whiny bastard. Just be happy that something you are passionate about is inspiring other people, too, even if sometimes it's on a kind of shallow level.

I've actually spent most of my life trying to get other people to see that they ARE geeks and nerds, just about different things. Sports stats geeks (especially baseball) or motorheads that can tell you everything about every type of car ever made, they embody the same ambition and passion for mostly trivial knowledge that pushes us to know everything about comics.

What Mouse_clicker said. (Especially that last paragraph. It's funny when you try to point out to jocks that their behavior is exactly the same as that of nerds, just with sports instead of movies and games. The denial is strong in them.)Anyway, it really does suck when someone who has no idea what it means to be a nerd tries to pretend to be one, (imagine some kid claiming he's a jock just because he's heard of what sports are, but has never actually seen or played any.) But, if there's one thing that nerds need to learn it's not to act like the people who have persecuted us. If they want to claim nerd status, let them, just make sure to share ever more nerdier stuff with them. Either they'll freak out and stop it, or become nerds for real.

My first response to this comic was to agree with it, and then I read mouse_clicker's comment and felt vaguely ashamed of myself. The term "nerd", like the term "hipster", has very little meaning anymore, but people who identify as nerds shouldn't resent the fact that their hobbies and interests are now accepted by the majority. It's a little jarring, but not a bad thing.

The number of sports geeks who think watching football makes them a jock is far, far higher than the number of comic geeks who think reading Batman makes them a superhero. Sports geeks are the most delusional of geeks.

I'd find this attitude a lot less problematic if it wasn't almost always directed towards women. There's no "fake geek guy" meme going around, and no one's writing rants about how men are pretending to be geeks and invading geek culture. As a geek girl myself, I can't begin to tell you how frustrating it is to have my likes questioned by men who don't even know me just because I also have lady parts. Being a "nerd" or "geek" or whatever is about liking something with above average enthusiasm. Why does there have to be some arbitrary threshold set for when you like something "enough" if you dare to like it and be female.

I've had enough of the whole separate set of rules for female geeks. We're going to like what we like whether men have deemed it okay for us to or not. And guys like this can just keep their heads right up their asses and miss out on meeting some pretty cool people who yes, are female geeks and no, don't want to have anything to do with some troll who thinks being a man means he's the gatekeeper of geek culture.

And yeah, this isn't "jus folks." Take it from a woman who's met guys just like this. He's a jerk.

My first thought when I read this was "No way, hipster geeks totally say this about both men and women." Then I started trying to think of examples and I realized I had absolutely none. Then I realized that you were spot on, there is absolutely a double standard based on gender. And really, that shouldn't be surprising, there's a double standard for EVERYTHING when it comes to gender.

And let me clarify, I don't mean "it's okay" when I say "it's not surprising." It's not even a little bit okay, it's awful. But I should realized immediately that the same gender double standards that apply everywhere also apply here.

Well said indeed! There are, unfortunately, more than a few geek guys who don't feel comfortable with geek girls. We've all laughed about that stereotype in the past, but it can result in women being told they're not doing it right, that they're not passing some impossible test...

And that's not on, because who made these guys the frakkin' Gatekeepers of Nerddom?

I decided a long time ago to assume that any woman who claims to be a geek is a geek, because to do otherwise is to be a jerk. Are there women who like to dress up and be sexy at cons without being immersed in geek culture themselves? I dunno, maybe. Can't say I've ever met one, but maybe I have. Would I care? Nope. Maybe if I treat them with respect, they'll see my world is welcoming to them and they'll turn into geeks.

I have a feeling that's what at the core of this guy's complaints, too.

"He's a nerd! Ugh. Probably a virgin. A smelly one."

"She's a nerd! How cute! I bet she wears some kind of woollen hat and is all quirky like Zooey Deschanel. She can't really be into all those superhero comics like a smelly virgin boy."

(Again, judging by some of the white knights commenting...)

And when it comes to the 'nerds' (of both sexes) who claim it because they once bought a batman pez dispenser and also describe themselves as 'mad' or 'zany', as opposed to the genuine nerds with a regular order at the comic store (or comixology), who've had delightful people sneer at their fondly-held interests... It's a bit like 'whiggers', I imagine. Nowhere near the same level of social repression of course, but maybe a similar sort of feeling that the poser hasn't earned it. Hasn't put in their time in the trenches. Hasn't come to it naturally with some kind of depth to their connection and passion.You want to be a nerd, you spend a couple of weeks arguing on internet forums about One More Day, Red Hulk, and Rob Liefeld. Then we'll talk.

I used to play D&D with strippers (our DM was a bouncer at a strip club). I was 15 and in heaven, hanging out with these gorgeous college students paying their tuition by "alternate means," while they teased me and treated me like a little brother. Frustrating, horny heaven. One of the other players--another bouncer--was a very handsome, athletic guy. Another guy in our groups was a nerdy guy with no fashion sense, just like me. We were all geeks together. So I guess I learned early on that geeks can come in all shapes and sizes and plumbing styles.

The only time I ever played D&D (never did it again, wasn't for me) was with a friend of mine from high school (kinda typical nerd like me) and 3 good ol' country boys from way out in the middle of nowhere in Kansas. One of them was the DM, and the other two were father and son, and the son was on his high school's football team. But they were super into it, way more than I was. I remember the DM talking at length about how Orson Wells almost got to make a Batman movie before the Adam West show was put into production, and how that could have drastically changed the style of the comics and character for decades to come, the same way Adam West did.

Geeks are geeks, they don't have a set look, age, gender, race, or background.

Okay, the geek in me needs to point out that the whole Orson Welles Batman thing was an internet hoax perpetrated by Mark Millar in 2003. Totally not true.

And while I'm at it, the Adam West show didn't drastically change the style of the comics for decades to come. The "new look" Batman (yellow moon symbol on his chest, leaner, no block-jaw) was introduced in the comic books in 1964. The Adam West tv show ran from 1966-1968, and by 1970 Denny O'Neil and Neal Adams had introduced in the comics their return-to-his-roots, dark, non-campy version of Batman, which has stayed the paradigm ever since (with the exception of a movie or two we'd all be better off forgetting, and the recent Brave and the Bold cartoon)

If being nerdy is fashionable right now, so what? Give it a decade. Hell, give it a couple of years. The fashionistas will move onto whatever other stupid horseshit catches their eye. Short shorts and mutton chops for guys, Muy Thai fist wrappings and welding goggles for girls. Whatever. It doesn't matter.

Do whatever it is you love, and don't expect to be able to control other people's behavior.

Woah, man, woah! Does this person not know how Tumblr works? "Nerd" practically defines most of the people on there! It's, like, THE place to go to showcase your obsession over your favorite series (whether animated, comic, book, whatever). The fact that he made this comment at all makes me think he's never really been on Tumblr.

I suspect the average male comic nerd would probably run screaming from the average female Tumblr nerd. The things woman Tumblr do, the things they say, the people they ship.... you can never unsee it. Never. o_o

Really? Tumblr is THE place to go to showcase your obsession? Well, when *I* want to "showcase my obsession", I start by showing someone my 30,000 comic books, library full of graphic novels, framed comic book art on the walls, my collection of Godzilla paraphernalia, and I tell them I owned a comic book shop for seven years. Who needs Tumblr compared to *that*?!? Oh, and I should mention that I am female.Sorry, Tumblr user. I don't think that being able to talk pop culture on social media qualifies you as a nerd or geek. You may actually be a nerd or a geek. But you can't rule someone out just because they aren't into *your* personal obsession.

Settle Anon. She never said you needed to 'get' Tumblr to be a nerd, she suggested that declaring someone to be a fake nerd, and using their Tumblr experience to back the comment was an incorrect course. Tumblr nerd and comic nerd, though often hand in hand, are different sides of the culture. For our comic example to say girls shouldn't call themselves nerds just cause they have a tumblr and know who batman is like saying girls can't call themselves nerds just because they play Mass Effect and know who Batman is. It's a valid argument that does not undermine your ownership of comics.Also? Pop Culture, and it's use in references is a vast level of nerd on it's own. More geek actually, but potato potahto, right?

This kind of goes both ways really; there are a vast amount of girls who call themselves 'nerds' and 'geeks' because they saw the latest Dark Knight film and bought a distressed Batman t shirt at Primark (although seriously, I too want one, they're awesome) and don't quite understand what the terms mean exactly, but at the same time there are arseholes who apparently think 'geek girls' are like unicorns and the tooth fairy - fictional, and when presented with one (real or fake) they automatically assume they're fake without bothering to find out if they're right.

I used to get some stick on WoW for being female and into it, as well as comics and the things that simply are my interests, but I have also myself experienced girls who profess to be "total geeks" because it's the current in thing.I can assure them that being a geek was in no way cool or 'retro' when I was being constantly ridiculed in school for loving the things I did, for having the two awkward geek male friends I did, and for looking like the epitome of a geek loser. But of course to those girls, 'geek' means a pair of fake glasses with the lenses popped out and a t shirt with a Big Bang Theory quote on it.

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